Planet Week: Climate change will drive American migration
Welcome to Planet Week, where we highlight the last week of environmental news and what it means for our planet.
The Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest August in recorded history. The largest remaining Arctic ice shelf shattered. And United States President Donald Trump and Presidential Nominee Joe Biden came to two different conclusions about California’s record wildfires.
In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the planet:
Monday, September 14
We may have hit peak oil
Early last week, BP forecasted a decline in demand for oil over the next 30 years, suggesting peak oil may have come and gone last year. The report goes against the International Energy Agency’s 2019 predictions of oil demand growing into next decade.
The decline is in part a result of the pandemic, which halted travel and manufacturing around the world. But the scale and pace of oil’s continued fall will depend on increasing energy efficiency and the electrification of transportation. CNN has the full story.
Google and Facebook’s climate pledges
Two tech giants made big climate pledges this week. On Monday, Google announced it would run its entire operations carbon-free by 2030, becoming the first major company to do so. The company will also continue buying carbon offsets and investing in clean energy.
A day later, Facebook announced it would purchase enough carbon offsets and renewable energy to achieve net-zero emissions this year, as well as reach net-zero emissions in its supply chain by 2030. The social media giant also launched a “Climate Science Information Center” to provide users with facts and figures about climate change — though, as many environmentalists pointed out, Facebook still shops short of removing climate misinformation from its site.
Read the Google and Facebook stories at The Verge.
Tuesday, September 15
Climate change will drive American migration
Climate change will completely reshape the United States by the end of the century, forcing tens of millions to flee North, as outlined in a new analysis by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine.
Heat, humidity, wildfires, rising sea levels will close in on Americans over the next 30 years, leaving nearly half of the U.S. population in a degraded environment (more heat, less water) with crumbling economies. The analysis argues that Americans have largely avoided confronting these changes in their own backyard, but they won’t have that option in the near future.
“The sense that money and technology can overcome nature has emboldened Americans,” Abrahm Lustgarten, the report’s author, writes. “Nobody wants to migrate away from home, even when an inexorable danger is inching ever closer. They do it when there is no longer any other choice.”
Our trillion-dollar problem
It’s still possible to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 — but it’s going to cost us. A new report by the London-based think tank Energy Transitions Commission found that reaching such a target would require spending $1–2 trillion a year, or the equivalent of 1–1.5% of global GDP.
The report calls for speeding up zero-carbon solutions, creating better policy and incentives, and investing in green research and development. It also urges governments, businesses, and civil society to work together and accelerate these actions before 2030. We’ve seen similar guidance before, but leaders often lack political will to follow it.
The world failed miserably to meet biodiversity goals
In 2010, United Nations members gathered to set 20 biodiversity goals for the next decade. Welp, the decade’s passed and we failed to meet even one of these goals, according to a U.N. report out Tuesday.
The rate of biodiversity decline is “unprecedented” and the driving factors are “intensifying,” according to the report. The good news is that 89% of countries made at least some progress in their goals, and there’s still time to turn things around.
“The window of time available is short, but the pandemic has also demonstrated that transformative changes are possible when they must be made,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, in a press release.
Wednesday, September 16
Slow-moving Hurricane Sally floods Gulf Coast
On Wednesday morning, Hurricane Sally hit the U.S. Gulf Coast as a Category 2 storm. At least one person died, hundreds of people were rescued, and half a million residents lost power, reports The Guardian.
The storm brought 105 mph winds but moved only about 2–3 mph. That glacial pace led to stronger storm surges and flooding in some areas, with some forecasters measuring rain in feet. It also led to a striking realization: Slow-moving hurricanes may be the latest climate-fueled hazard.
With Atlantic hurricane names reaching the end of the alphabet, what’s next? For only the second time, the U.S. National Hurricane Center will turn to the Greek alphabet. Grist explains the wonky, sometimes-problematic history of storm names.
Thursday, September 17
U.S. rollbacks are the emissions-equivalent of Russia
New research from the Rhodium Group suggests Trump’s environmental rollbacks could add more greenhouse gas emissions to the U.S. output over the next 15 years, than the total current annual output of Russia. For context, Russia is the fourth-biggest carbon polluter, behind China, the U.S., and India.
In his first term, Trump has dismantled 68 rules and continues to publicly deny climate science. According to the report, the findings likely underestimate the damage already done, highlighting the importance of the November election.
“Our analysis of federal rollbacks likely underestimates the climate implications of the Trump administration,” the authors wrote. “A future federal administration will need to go beyond reinstating policies that the Trump administration has rolled back and also set higher levels of policy ambition that take new market realities into consideration.” Read the full story by Politico.
Bonus
Chapter books rewritten
Here’s a little dark humor to start your week: Charlie Dektar of The New Yorker rewrites some classic chapter books to include climate catastrophes.
“Once, there were four children, named Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy,” he writes of C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. “They were all consumed by a plague of ancient diseases unleashed from the melting Siberian permafrost.”
Have a great week,
Brandon and Sam
